The Richest And The Poorest States 2014

The United States of America, considered as the most developed nation, also has a vast variation throughout the state regarding the wealth. Well, after recession in the country wealth of some has hiked up while many are still suffering the impact.

To get an idea of this variation and determine the wealth status, a personal finance site-WalletHub evaluated the 50 states and the capital District of Columbia. The fields of evaluation included income, GDP per capita, tax dollars per capita, and then were adjusted for population; the data used were from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The income was given double preference while GDP and taxes were given half-priority. Many received same rankings and tied for one place.

Talking about the positions of the findings, Washington, D.C. and New Jersey top the list, tying for 1st position. Though the capital stood first among the highest GDP per capita and taxes in the country, it was ranked 6th in terms of income. Connecticut and Maryland tied at 3rd with Maryland ranking first at the Income rank. Massachusetts ranked 6th in taxes per capita even though commonly known as “Taxachusetts” but overall it stood at 5th.

Alaska behaved in an odd way where the income and GDP were ranked at 2nd while the taxes were paid very poorly since it ranked 33rd in taxes paid per capita. The Arkansas did pretty good. Its income rank is 50 still the taxes paid by it are very good (compared to income) with 13th position. New York, with a population of 8.4 million, is a major producer of food for Americans. It showed a balanced ranking between incomes (16th) and taxes paid (9th). Nevada with a highest $10.86 billion revenue generator is poor in terms of tax payment (41st).

Coming to the bottom of the list, Mississippi ends the list with 51st rank overall as well as in all the three criteria. West Virginia, Alabama, South California and New Mexico are among the 5 poorest states of USA, struggling with stagnant earnings, unemployment and increasing poverty. West Virginia which is considered to be the revenue generator of $948 million is shockingly 50th in the list.

Florida, despite being surrounded by Gulf of Mexico, ranked 38th. According to reports, its household income has been stagnant almost 5 years from the start of recession.

A much deeper look into the income rankings reveal that New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi have the highest percentage of households earning less than $24,999 annually. And Idaho, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi have the lowest percentage of households earning above $200,000 annually.Thus they are among the top poor states.

On the other hand Alaska, Maryland, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Utah have the lowest percentages of households earning below $24,999, whereas Washington D.C., New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Massachusetts have the highest percentages of households earning above $200,000. Obviously, they deserve the top rankings of the rich states.

According to the Center for American Progress, the middle class are much into panic whose incomes are either stagnant now or have been declining since achieving peak in 1999. Consider the fact-at an income of $51,939 in 2013, the middle-class family still earn $4,500 less than it did in pre-recession. So the impact of recession is still visible in the middle-class family. On the contrary to the beliefs of diminishing wealth till now, the highest- a total of 7.1 million households were reported in 2013. It also beat others in terms of number of new househods-1.1 million. Though America is undergoing wealth stress, its progress isn’t saturated.